Water war

Right now it's an interesting war going on in East China Sea. At the heart of the conflict are some small islands that Japan argue about. Recently Taiwan entered the scene too.

The islands themselves are not important. The reason for this conflict is the United Nation's Law of the Sea Convention.  A coastal state is given exclusive economic zone as far out as the continental shelf goes, and at least 200 nautical miles from shore. Huge areas of oceans are associated with the smallest piece of dry land raising above sea level.

(These issues are very important for offshore petroleum exploration; that's why I know it.)

Most interesting and innovative is that the war is being fought with water weapons. Ships from the Japan, China and Taiwan are shooting at each other with water cannons.

From a warfare point of view this conflict is a great step forward. Finally, the armed forces are taking HSE (that is, health, safety and environment) seriously. Zero damage to people nor environment.

This is the way all wars should be in the future. Nobody's killed. Nobody's injured. Still the message gets through, no doubt: "I don't like you. I'm angry with you"

The same principles should be applied to the 2nd Amendment of the US constitution.  Just add one word to it: water.

"... the right of the people to keep and bear water arms ..." 

This would solve many problems. The gun-guys can carry their water pistols wherever they want, and sleep with them under the pillow. Some of the water guns look quite macho.

People would just get wet instead of getting killed. The gunner would get a fine instead of life time in jail.  Great idea, isn't it >:)

(I found the picture above on the internet. It's probably from one of the international news agencies that cover the on-going water war in the East China Sea.)

The 2nd worst invention of all time: Handguns

I was following the ban on handguns proposal from Obama, and the following debate with interest. For a while I was involved in discussion forums on the Internet, until I got tired of it. It was me against Texas, basically. The same stupid arguments repeated over and over, delivered with increasingly aggressive and rude language. I guess these guys know how to shoot; let the gun talk, but language skills seam to be correspondingly low.

I’m a peaceful man, I don’t like guns, never liked them. I prefer to use the pen, or actually the keyboard. I don’t like any kind of fire arms; handguns, shot guns, rifles or machine guns. Handguns are the most nasty and sneaky kind of fire arms, worst in a bad class; the 2nd worst invention of all time (after religion). I support a general ban on handguns; useless crap it is, good for nothing but killing people. Yes, I know that handguns are used for sport shooting too, even for hunting. Handguns are poor hunting weapons; most game hunters would prefer a shotgun or rifle for that purpose.

This is what makes handguns so dangerous: Handguns are easy to hide under a jacket. You can point the gun in any direction just by a small movement of the wrist. A rifle, for comparison, is a big and heavy object. You can’t easily hide it on your body. You can’t just point it all around with an easy hand movement. I know by experience. I have used both handguns and rifles myself, because I had to, in military service. Safety rules and precautions on the shooting range were always more strict for handguns than for rifles, with good reason.

Just for fun; here are some arguments from the gun-guys on the Internet forums:
1. The good guys need handguns because the bad guys have guns. Yes, sure, the bad guys have guns too. Most of the illegal handguns are stolen legal guns. If the total number of available guns were greatly reduced, the bad guys would have a hard time getting them too.
2. We need to defend ourselves and our homes against intruders. Yes, sure, and if the intruder knows you’re sleeping with a gun under your pillow, he will carry a gun too. And who will be the fastest on the trigger? A sleeping drunk Texas rancher, or a vigilant housebreaker?
3. I never leave home without my gun; the town is full of armed bad guys. Yes, sure. And what do you think would happen if you pulled your gun on Main Street to defend yourself, surrounded by other people carrying guns and ready to defend themselves? You would probably just shoot a lot of kids and unarmed innocent people who happened to be near by. Defending the citizens (by law enforcement) is a job for the police, defending the country (by war, in the name of God) is a job for the military forces.
4. We need guns to defend ourselves against the socialist-government in Washington (after Obama entered White House). What the Hell! How paranoid and crazy can you possibly get?

I told the gun-guys that in Winterland even the police is unarmed (this is almost true, they have guns locked into the trunk of the police cars). Their reaction was like “Then thanks God I don’t live in Winterland”. Yes, I’m glad you don’t live here too, as long as you insist on carrying your gun everywhere you go. But if you leave your handgun and bring your skis, you’re welcome to Winterland.

The worst inventions of all time

This is my top-three list of the worst inventions of all time:
1. Religion (the worst by far; all of them),
2. Handguns,
3. Pizza with pineapple.
I will come back to these items one by one, as soon as I get the time and inspiration to write about the misery.